Step Into My Kid's Kitchen

The Decker kids—Connor, 10; Sophie, 7; and Brogan, 4—know where their food comes from. In fact, it usually comes from their own backyard! The kids help Mom and Dad with their farmer's market stand, called My Kid's Kitchen, in Lake Champlain Island, Vermont.

The children help bake bread and pastries for the market. They also harvest and crush berries and other fruit for fresh jam and preserves, collect eggs from the family's chickens, and even help with the bee hives and honey and maple collection.

"Having that appreciation of what it really means to plant, grow, harvest and then savor what you made has a sweetness no dollar can ever match," says their dad, Walter Decker, a deputy police chief.

"I can attest that there is hardly ever a meal that is prepared in our home where one of the kids is not asked to go cut the lettuce, get some eggs, pull some carrots or other jobs related to food," he says.

Walter and his wife, Denise Boutin, were both raised on farms and wanted to give their children a similar upbringing.

Twice a week, the family mans the farmer's market stand. Since the kids are home-schooled, they're able to help out each time.

Denise says that kids really are the best critics, so the family lives by the My Kid's Kitchen motto, "If my kids like it, so will you!"